It's not about forgetting or forgiving bad behavior, or saying it's okay to
lash out at writers or fans, it's about finding a shred of empathy for what
so many online are asked to deal with on a daily, if not hourly, basis. We
call it all part of the job, as if you're not allowed human emotions due to
your success or prickly nature.

GameZone - I'm deeply worried about Fez creator Phil Fish, and you should be
too.I admit, Beer’s comments were a bit out of line (he basically called Fish
a whole bunch of nasty things purely because Fish refused to respond to an
email asking his opinion on what was at that point nothing but a rumor), and
Fish’s reaction was completely immature and uncalled for. The two should
just apologize to each other and move on. Like adults. The fact that they're
both unable to is frustrating to just about anyone with an active Twitter
account.

But here's the thing: The game industry needs Phil Fish, despite how
uncomfortable he makes us. It needs people who are willing to say whatever’s
on their minds despite how unpopular it makes them. It needs people who can
say, “You know what? Microsoft is ripping us all off,” especially when it’s
absolutely true.

GamesIndustry International - The Future of Games: We Need To Protect Our
Past.With EA's closure of The Sims Social and Pet Society, both important
titles in the evolution of F2P and social gaming, is their legacy lost? Or
indeed will we be able to study FarmVille's transformation by rolling
between versions? Or are these games simply transient leaving only a
recorded, non-playable history? Will hackers afford them the same level of
reverse engineering that they have World of Warcraft which surely survive
any official server closures?

I am unsure of the answers to any of these questions, however I am sure that
these games, like all games, are worth protecting and preserving. Yet that
protection requires the cooperation of a great number of parties.

I hope that as more and more social games get shuttered that the companies
behind them provide the knowledge and access to technology, such as server
code, needed to keep them in some form playable for ourselves and the next
generations of game makers.

I suspect everyone is pretty tired of your personal politics invading every thread on a videogame forum. Before you cry about double standards you were already warned once and other people might get away with the odd comment because they don't do it constantly.

I have yet to be censored for offering conservative opinions online, the only ones I see being censored are the idiots who spew fringe opinions that no one wants to see. These are the internet equivalent people you would tell to shut up in real life anyway.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Or just put them down for 8 hours of community service.

Well, you need the policeman to put them down for the community service.By and large I don't think most, or many, or even more than 1 or 2, deserve actual jailtime, but if there were repercussions then the anonymous coward (not Anonymous) would rapidly disappear.

Why not just arrest and toss in jail anyone who doesn't agree with you on anything? Because it's a slippery slope when we start censoring free speech based on people's feelings.

According to the FBI death threats on social media are not protected by free speech. Then there's cyberbullying. Two kids in my state were arrested yesterday.

The ironic thing is death threats and abuse on Twitter is against their own rules. Stupidly they put the public in charge of reporting violations and it is often used to censor innocent people.

So we're going to run around throwing high schoolers in jail for basically being high schoolers. Rather than using common sense on a case by case basis.

It may be just perceived death threats today be they serious or not, tomorrow it will be if you're too conservative minded for example, off to the train to Auschwitz for you.

Social justice, especially of the tumblr, reddit/<insert social network site here> is the worse kind imo.

You're being a tad melodramatic, don't you think? It really started getting out of hand immediately after the Columbine High massacre. In recent years and state budget cuts most of that was reversed. Going after cyberbullying is even more costly. You are worrying about nothing.

But it is funny you bring up conservative minded people on social media. They are routinely targeted on Twitter by large groups of leftists falsely reporting them as spam. Many well known conservative bloggers are being censored. Not surprisingly it never happens to the other side. Spend a few minutes googling and you will be amazed at how corrupt and hypocritical twitter and facebook have become. My advice is don't use them at all. Bullshit isn't sustainable for long.

Which is why I used that as an example. And I've said this a few times already, for a party that preaches tolerance, liberals sure do go out of their way to censor or just outright slander anything that doesn't agree with their ideology. And they often do it in very deceitful ways.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Or just put them down for 8 hours of community service.

Well, you need the policeman to put them down for the community service.By and large I don't think most, or many, or even more than 1 or 2, deserve actual jailtime, but if there were repercussions then the anonymous coward (not Anonymous) would rapidly disappear.

Why not just arrest and toss in jail anyone who doesn't agree with you on anything? Because it's a slippery slope when we start censoring free speech based on people's feelings.

According to the FBI death threats on social media are not protected by free speech. Then there's cyberbullying. Two kids in my state were arrested yesterday.

The ironic thing is death threats and abuse on Twitter is against their own rules. Stupidly they put the public in charge of reporting violations and it is often used to censor innocent people.

So we're going to run around throwing high schoolers in jail for basically being high schoolers. Rather than using common sense on a case by case basis.

It may be just perceived death threats today be they serious or not, tomorrow it will be if you're too conservative minded for example, off to the train to Auschwitz for you.

Social justice, especially of the tumblr, reddit/<insert social network site here> is the worse kind imo.

You're being a tad melodramatic, don't you think? It really started getting out of hand immediately after the Columbine High massacre. In recent years and state budget cuts most of that was reversed. Going after cyberbullying is even more costly. You are worrying about nothing.

But it is funny you bring up conservative minded people on social media. They are routinely targeted on Twitter by large groups of leftists falsely reporting them as spam. Many well known conservative bloggers are being censored. Not surprisingly it never happens to the other side. Spend a few minutes googling and you will be amazed at how corrupt and hypocritical twitter and facebook have become. My advice is don't use them at all. Bullshit isn't sustainable for long.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Or just put them down for 8 hours of community service.

Well, you need the policeman to put them down for the community service.By and large I don't think most, or many, or even more than 1 or 2, deserve actual jailtime, but if there were repercussions then the anonymous coward (not Anonymous) would rapidly disappear.

Why not just arrest and toss in jail anyone who doesn't agree with you on anything? Because it's a slippery slope when we start censoring free speech based on people's feelings.

According to the FBI death threats on social media are not protected by free speech. Then there's cyberbullying. Two kids in my state were arrested yesterday.

The ironic thing is death threats and abuse on Twitter is against their own rules. Stupidly they put the public in charge of reporting violations and it is often used to censor innocent people.

So we're going to run around throwing high schoolers in jail for basically being high schoolers. Rather than using common sense on a case by case basis.

It may be just perceived death threats today be they serious or not, tomorrow it will be if you're too conservative minded for example, off to the train to Auschwitz for you.

Social justice, especially of the tumblr, reddit/<insert social network site here> is the worse kind imo.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Or just put them down for 8 hours of community service.

Well, you need the policeman to put them down for the community service.By and large I don't think most, or many, or even more than 1 or 2, deserve actual jailtime, but if there were repercussions then the anonymous coward (not Anonymous) would rapidly disappear.

Why not just arrest and toss in jail anyone who doesn't agree with you on anything? Because it's a slippery slope when we start censoring free speech based on people's feelings.

According to the FBI death threats on social media are not protected by free speech. Then there's cyberbullying. Two kids in my state were arrested yesterday.

The ironic thing is death threats and abuse on Twitter is against their own rules. Stupidly they put the public in charge of reporting violations and it is often used to censor innocent people.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Or just put them down for 8 hours of community service.

Well, you need the policeman to put them down for the community service.By and large I don't think most, or many, or even more than 1 or 2, deserve actual jailtime, but if there were repercussions then the anonymous coward (not Anonymous) would rapidly disappear.

Why not just arrest and toss in jail anyone who doesn't agree with you on anything? Because it's a slippery slope when we start censoring free speech based on people's feelings.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:You know, someone in the UK was just arrested for making a post like half of those tweets in that gamerfury tumblr.Honestly, the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

Those aren't even jokes, they're people being endless dicks and claiming they will shoot wives, burn houses, kill daughters, all of people whose addresses are readily available on the internet. Maybe people would stop and think a bit before posting if telling someone whose name you know that you're going to shoot their family in front of them would result in officers knocking on your door.

The police already don't have enough manpower to do anything except write speeding tickets anymore, so I'm not sure where they're supposed to find the 500.000 officers it would take to follow up on every internet death threat.

Perhaps a better system would be if you could lodge a complaint with the offending person's ISP, and said ISP cuts off the most abusive fucktards.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Or just put them down for 8 hours of community service.

Well, you need the policeman to put them down for the community service.By and large I don't think most, or many, or even more than 1 or 2, deserve actual jailtime, but if there were repercussions then the anonymous coward (not Anonymous) would rapidly disappear.

To rephrase what I mentioned earlier, without naming names to avoid the butthurting. Fish brought this on himself by being a douche and obviously not being able to take that kind of attitude back. The idea that people are defending him for this, is the same as the social justice tumblr and reddit users that seem to always have one unimportant cause or another to cry and whine about. This is no different.

fujiJuice wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 00:36:I take issue with that PA article somehow thinking that game developers are in a unique position, the only people to ever receive insults or threats over the internet. Sure it goes on to mention other public figures but its central focus is game developers. The overall tone of the article suggests Fish took the moral high ground in this situation, and I feel that is certainly not the case.

"It's not about forgetting or forgiving bad behavior, or saying it's okay to lash out at writers or fans"

I think the PA article, while prompted by Phil Fish, is taking a step back from this specific situation. Their point is neither side comes away clean. When you play the game, you are going to get messy. And there's something unsettling about that. Abuse is just a part of the job? Really?

Also, I don't think the article claims that game devs are unique in this kind of abuse. It's a gaming site so obviously that's the focus.

But I think they ARE somewhat unique. The audience for games today is a bit wider in age range than other forms, and people's interaction with the medium make it a little more personal in a way. When the Call of Duty guns were nerfed, the players whose playstyles were affected felt personally singled out. When I'm really playing a game, more than other media, I think of it as "my game", not just a book I'm reading or a show I like.

I never said abuse was just part of the job, in fact quite opposite, I don't think anyone should have to endure that. However abuse is just rampant on the internet, it is a shame, but also the truth.

You can go on Rotten Tomatoes or any other site where opinions are given, and see plenty of people wishing harm or spewing insults on those with a differing opinion. Just go to any news site and look at some of the comments for controversial stories, it isn't pretty.

Beamer wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 01:34:the world would be a better place if written death threats sent directly to a known individual were an arrest-worthy offense. Maybe not one that comes with jail time, but enough to have the police knock on your door and take you down for a few hours of questioning to determine if you were being serious or not.

I am not disagreeing or agreeing. But it also qued a Jaws line variation... "We're going to need a lot more policeman"

Fish might have been copping abuse routinely from other people too, but that's not what brought it to a head. And maybe he wouldn't cop so much abuse if he didn't act like a smug abusive asshole to other people. It's the internet; act like a prick and you should know what's about to come your way.

The Half Elf wrote on Jul 30, 2013, 02:27:How much shit could you/would you take before you finally just went off and told everyone to eat shit and die?

Not saying anyone is right or wrong, but personally, if I was dealing with that on a regular basis, it wouldn't take me very long.

I don't know, I have a nearly infinite patience for internet bullshit because it is just that, people acting out their negativity in a medium where they can get away with it. Once you accept that it becomes much easier to look at it with amusement.

It's almost like they have a job where they deal with the public *gasp* After tending bar for a few years after college I think I can handle some poindexter telling me to fuck off and die on twitter.